Astronaut John Glenn, first American to orbit the earth, has died at the age of 95

John Glenn was an American aviator, engineer, astronaut, and United States Senator from Ohio. He was one of the “Mercury Seven” group of military test pilots selected in 1959 by NASA to become America’s first astronauts and fly the Project Mercury spacecraft.

On February 20, 1962, Glenn flew the Friendship 7 mission and became the first American to orbit the Earth and the fifth person in space, after cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov and the sub-orbital flights of Mercury astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom.